


upon your heart

by shortcircuitify



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 02:47:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8827435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortcircuitify/pseuds/shortcircuitify
Summary: “I know that,” Emily replied, dipping her finger into the well of ink on her desk. She began writing her own name on the blank sheet in front of her, but it was nothing like the natural flow written upon her friend’s skin. It was too uneven, the lines shaky and scratched.“But when will I get it?”“And how should I know?” Callista replied gently, lightly tapping Emily upon the nose. She scrunched her face up in response. ~A tiny soulmate AU~-edited!-





	

Alexi had received her mark when Emily was fifteen and she, seventeen.

Emily watched in awe, a gasp escaping her lips as letters in bold, beautiful black whale-ink appeared across her friend’s shoulders, the letters imprinting themselves upon Alexi’s skin.

Her eyes were wide, lips parted, as a name painted itself across her friend’s back, the word beautiful, flowing and curved and bold, claimed and undaunted. Emily hesitantly reached out to touch the name, as if the power of the void would curl onto her skin, giving her own name over, and Alexi gasped. She pulled her hand back, as if burned.

“So?” Alexi whispered excitedly, a smile slowly claiming her lips, “What does it _say_?”

_Wyman._

***

Callista huffed, Emily’s excited question having nothing to do with the list of names and dates she had just gone over.

“Everyone has a soulmark, everyone receives a soulmark,” she droned, the words old and tired upon her lips.

“I _know_ that,” Emily replied, dipping her finger into the well of ink on her desk. She began writing her own name on the blank sheet in front of her, but it was nothing like the natural flow written upon her friend’s skin. It was too uneven, the lines shaky and scratched.

“But _when_ will I get it?”

“And how should I know?” Callista replied gently, lightly tapping Emily upon the nose. She scrunched her face up in response.

“It’s been forever! I just want to know,” Emily whined, and Callista _tsked._ They still had two more books on the old Emperors and Empresses to get through.

“Why? Are you planning a wedding anytime soon, Empress?”

Emily’s cheeks flushed red at her tutor’s words, and Callista smirked, before her smile turned melancholic, her eyes drifting far away.

“A soulmark isn’t everything, Emily. It might be exciting at first, and new and interesting, but even its ink will fade with time. It isn’t everything.”

Callista drew the sleeve of her blouse back, and her finger began tracing the name printed across her arm, long since memorized and forgotten and learned again. Emily watched, entranced, as her caretaker’s eyes drifted towards the window of the study, following the setting of the sun over Dunwall’s horizon.

Emily looked at the name. It was nothing like Alexi’s. It was sharp, the letters blocky, and bold in an entirely different way. The name was already starting to fade away. She began reading the name, beginning with a _T_ and then an _E_ , before Callista drew her sleeve down and dropped a book over Emily’s paper full of scrawled names.

***

Emily knew her father had a name. When they were playing in the courtyard, and she would run away for a moment, looking for snails or flowers or rocks, he would take a moment to sit, his bones already creaking and weary. And in those moments, he would draw the sleeve of his tunic down, or take off his glove, and look at the name imprinted upon his wrist. Sometimes he was wistful, others he would stare at the mark with a small smile creasing his lips. She liked him in those moments. He looked younger, with the lines crinkling his eyes.

She wondered if it was her mother’s name, and if the ink still held, after so long a time, her blood spilled upon it years ago. Her father was old, after all, older than the whales out in the deep dark of the ocean. She liked to imagine it was, tried to imagine how _Jessamine_ would look winding around her father’s wrist.

Once, when the winter frost was cold in Dunwall Tower, and Corvo was reading in a large armchair near the roaring fire and Emily was sat at his feet, she asked him, “When did you get your mark, dad?”

He ruffled her hair fondly, a familiar smirk already in place, “When I was twelve.”

She gasped, loudly, turning to look at him clearly, her hand on his knee and her eyes wide, “ _Twelve?”_

An eyebrow raised, and he stared at her a moment, “Yes, twelve. Why, dearest?”

She bit her lip, returning to her spot coloring at his feet, her shoulders drooped in an obvious sulk, “No reason, I suppose.”

Her dramatic sigh said otherwise, and Corvo laughed fondly.

***

In the dark of night, on one of those sleepless nights of hers when all she could do was trace nonsense lines across her body and imagine the name that would lie upon her wrist, arm, hip, knee, and pray to the Scriptures for her name to appear, for her to know who out there would love her without condition, who wouldn’t care about her being an Empress, who would comb her hair with fondness and pull her up into their arms and kiss her cheeks, a man appeared in her dreams.

He was cloaked in shade and violet, smoke hiding his face from her. All she could see were his eyes – dark as the void, and his mouth, lips drawn together in a fierce line. He took her hand in his, drew her across frozen rocks and jagged platforms, whales crooning through endless skies. Her eyes widened in curiosity, a thousand questions burning on her tongue as the strange man watched her, cautious and unknown. She wondered if this was the void.

His hand was surprisingly warm, and when she woke, forehead slicked with sweat, a scream swallowed in her throat, those dark eyes were imprinted in her mind.

***

Sometimes, the back of her hand tingled. It would always occur in the worst of moments, when she was with Callista during her etiquette lessons, or with Samuel fishing, and being silent and still were key to hooking the best fish. Sometimes it felt like a scratch, others, like her skin was bubbling up under itself. She would rub it and scratch it until the skin was raw, and she wondered to herself if there, her name would appear.

She stared at it, her bare back hand. She wondered if it was the charming boy that would sometimes come to court with his father, or the servant that helped around in the kitchens on occasion. But in those moments, clearer than the rest, she would imagine dark eyes, lips drawn in a tight line.

As she grew, age and time claiming her, she thought more about the man in her dream. His sharp jaw, his height as he loomed over her. And more often than not, she wondered what a smile would look like painted across those lips.

***

He only appeared to her on nights when she didn’t think she would be able to fall asleep. Always briefly, always silently, always hidden by a billow of smoke.

***

“The Outsider, you say?”

Alexi and Emily turned, their conversation overheard by one of the hags of the back alley they were walking through. Alexi’s hand went to the hidden blade tucked under her hip, but Emily approached the old woman cautiously.

The woman smiled, although it looked like an evil thing. She was old, face made up on old lines and wrinkles more than anything else.

“Ah, the Outsider. Haven’t heard that name in a long time.”

“Do you know of him?” Emily asked, the curiosity that had been gnawing at her since she had heard the name creeping over her anew.

“Mm, once upon a time, perhaps. But never by me, only of the old tales. That old god hasn’t been around in thousands on years, though people still pray to him,” she nodded sagely, and Emily saw the edges of a whale bone around the woman’s neck, the bare backs of the woman's hands.

She looked at Emily, her face moving into the light where it became clear that she was blind, her eyes clouded over.

“The more ye try to grab his attention, the more he shies away from ye, is what I heard. But what do I know? I’m just an old woman,” her hearty laughter rung out throughout the alley.

***

The flame flickered dimly over the book she was reading, her eyes captured by the words and symbols spread before her. Throughout all of Dunwall Tower’s library, in the deepest and dustiest corner, she could only find three books about the void, each one vaguer than the last. But they would have to do, she mused, if Callista refused to teach her about it herself.

The smell of burning whale oil surrounded her, and she pretended that it was a foreign incense, all the way from Pandyssia.

Hesitantly, she reached out to the page she was reading, tracing over the strange mark printed in dark ink. _The Mark of the Outsider,_ read the caption, and she traced the symbol over and over again until it became second nature.

She had never seen the mark before, but it felt familiar, almost. And in that moment, she felt the back of her hand burning again. It was stronger, but more pleasant, a gentle humming just under her skin.

She held her breath, watching her hand, waiting for some form of a name to appear there, but as the flame grew dimmer and the oil ran out, there was nothing left but dusty books about a long-dead god.

He didn’t appear to her, after that.

***

It was not until she was twenty-five, freshly coronated as Empress, her mind whirling from a night of celebration and honor, that she felt the burning sting upon the back of her hand.

The night air was cool against her skin as she stood upon her balcony, the party still raging far below, and she, half-undressed, ready to sleep away a night of drinking and laughter. And then it came. It was more unpleasant than she imagined. She had imagined it would be a pleasing ache, a reminder of the future to come, but instead she felt the burning of flesh as a name etched itself upon her.

Except it was not a name. It was a strange mark, imprinted upon the entirety of hand, its edges strange but beautiful. A familiar mark, one that she had traced and memorized on nights when she could not fall asleep. She felt her heart beat deeply into her throat. She stared at it a moment, touched it with her fingertips, and it glowed at the edges, sharp orange and blue spreading its way across the mark. It still burned.

The sun slowly set as she stood there and the shadows crept their way up upon the Tower walls, and from their depths stood a man made of smoke, whispers creeping in his wake. She watched him approach, slowly, his steps meticulous and slow.

“You’re the Outsider,” she gasped, though there was no fear in her voice, only wonder that he would return to her again. He was known to be fickle, she read, and she assumed he had simply lost his interest.

He was tall, taller than her, and his jaw was sharp, and his hair was inky black, eyes to match. She found herself staring, waiting for his reply as he slowly crept closer to her. She did not move away, and she watched him, the poorly hidden amusement creeping into his eyes. She flushed, the intensity of his stare oddly flattering in the orange of the sunset. Watched as he took her hand in his, the burn still bright against her skin, and kissed the mark adorning her.

He looked into her eyes, a dangerous smirk playing against his lips, a smile once long imagined, and said, “Then you must be Emily.”

His fingers played against the edge of his jaw before he pulled down the edge of his tunic, and across where his heart should lay, there was her name, written with her fingertips, the lines uneven and scratched.

**Author's Note:**

> Be warned! When it is not late at night I shall slightly edit this, but nothing too drastic, just to let you all know :) hope you enjoy!
> 
> Edit: -Edited!-


End file.
